2/23/12 9:10 PM EST

A former Sarah Palin aide who was part of an effort this week to discredit the “Game Change” film last year told the screenwriter in an email that he could “confidentially consult” on the movie and suggested a “formal agreement” for his help, POLITICO has learned.

The revelation came a day after Palin senior adviser Jason Recher, along with a group of other one-time staffers to the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, held a conference call to denounce the movie version of the campaign retrospective by reporters John Heilemann and Mark Halperin.

Recher, who was a senior adviser on the Palin ‘08 campaign, told reporters on the call that the depiction of the former Alaska governor in the HBO movie, which has not yet been released, is false.

Recher insisted that, based on the trailer and accounts about the movie, the film paints Palin negatively and claimed screenwriter Danny Strong had prevented him from fact-checking it.

Recher alleged on the call that Strong had asked him early on in the process of making the script whether the book was an accurate account.

“I told him absolutely, unequivocally, it was not,” Recher said on the conference call for selected reporters, which was conducted with six other former Palin hands. He claimed Strong said he would show him the script, but that when Recher called after seeing the trailer to collect on that offer, Strong said HBO wouldn’t let him.

Strong denied to POLITICO that account of the conversations.

“I asked him if ‘Game Change’ was based on a false narrative and he said, ‘No,’” Strong said. He added, “I never promised to show him the script and I never promised to show anyone the script.”

Sources familiar with the discussions between Recher and Strong said the screenwriter reached out to the Palin aide when he started working on the script last January, and found him “very open to talking,” in part because he was fan of the HBO movie “Recount.”

The sources said Recher told Strong there are also a lot of positive stories about Palin that exist that had been overshadowed by the negative ones.

At the time, Recher had already parted ways with the former governor’s political action committee — on good terms, according to Palin’s team at the time, and he later rejoined her staff.

They spoke by phone after Strong reached out over email, and following that conversation, Recher emailed the screenwriter to continue to the conversation, according to a copy of the email obtained by POLITICO.

The email tone was genial, and the content made no reference to the book as inaccurate. Instead it discussed the nuances and complexity of Palin as a person.

“Thanks for the call, I enjoyed speaking with you,” Recher wrote. “Considering your past work with Recount, I believe you want to make GameChange [sic] as realistic as possible. Governor Palin is a unique and complex player in the book and even more so in reality.”

“Based on our discussion, I believe it key to your project to accurately reflect the nuances of her personality as it was in public and behind the curtain in addition to the at times dramatic scenes and settings we found ourselves in,” he said. “I would be pleased to confidentially consult with you on this and suggest we discuss a formal agreement to do so. I would look forward to meeting with you and Jay and discussing my unique experiences directly from memory and not for spin to assist you on the project.”

“Thanks again and should you and the production team like to move forward I am open to discuss options,” he said, signing the email, “JR.”

Strong wrote back asking for clarity on what he meant by “formal agreement,” but it was never clear, sources said.

Recher told POLITICO by phone Thursday night that he was “absolutely not” seeking any form of compensation with that email.

Recher said he made the offer “so he could get the view of a pro-Palin person …I wanted to make sure my voice was heard and I wasn’t used as a pawn,” he said of the suggestion of a formal agreement. “I wanted to know how my words would be used. I didn’t know Danny Strong.”

He said he had a level of concern, as a Republican, about dealing with a Hollywood individual.

The question of whether he wanted to be compensated was “ridiculous,” he insisted.

They didn’t speak again about it, the sources said, although they did talk at some length in March after Julianne Moore was announced for the role of Palin. Recher provided some anecdotal color for the script, the sources said.

Why it would be that Recher only wanted in writing assurances about how the information he provided would be used - merely to go ahead and provide Strong with anecdotes two months later without those "formal" protections he said were all he wanted - was unclear.

Here's the Big Hollywood piece on Recher that landed ahead of the Palin press call on Wednesday. Recher insisted to me there is nothing inconsistent in this story with the events that took place, and he said he was clear on the call that Strong was always "courteous" and "professional" with him.

The Big Hollywood piece included Strong's email from Feb. 3 explaining that he couldn't provide Recher with the script because HBO wanted to let the then-finished film speak for itself. The piece indicates Recher only spoke with Strong once, and makes no mention of his email discussing a "formal agreement" or the anecdotes he provided the writer with:

While “Game Change” was still in production, screenwriter Danny Strong reached Jason Recher (the campaign’s senior advisor who was with Palin throughout the campaign). Strong told Recher the he was eager to speak with pro-Palin folks in order to find out if the book “Game Change” got anything wrong.

Recher told me, “I spoke to him briefly, told him [that the campaign] was one of the most positive experiences of my life, and that the 40 pages of ‘Game Change’ did not reflect my memory of that time.”

After that, Recher never again heard back from Strong and later learned, “I was written out of the movie, despite being a key player on an hourly basis for the duration of the campaign.”

So much for Strong wanting to talk to people who thought “Game Change” got it wrong!

Before they hung up, though, Strong did make a promise to Recher that he would later break. “Strong did say,” Recher recalled, “that if I was ever curious about the progress, or felt uncomfortable with the direction, he would share the script with me.”